Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 8.djvu/294

 '240 NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 S.VIIL MARCH 19, 1921. sculptures of the Golden Gate of Constantinople, 'for which Miss Hervey quotes a most interesting letter from Sir Thomas Koe, English Ambassador at the Porte to the Duke of Buckingham, illus- trate the eagerness of the pursuit of antiquities on the part of collectors. Arundel seems to have infected his whole family with his, zeal. ^The arrival of his marbles from the East created .a pretty scene of excitement among all the dilettanti of England. The artists with whom he came into contact ^numbered Inigo Jones, Rubens and Van Dyck, and the sympathetic treatment of himself in the portraits by the two latter seems in itself an acknowledgment on their part of inner kinship between him and them. He was indeed the very sublimation of the temperament and intellect r to which art at its best is addressed. The documents from which the life is com- piled are quoted from in great but judiciously calculated abundance. The appendices to the book are important ; they include the Arundel Inventory of 1655 ; extracts from Vertue's 1SS. concerning Holbein; the biography of Thomas, Earl of Arundel, by his son Lord Stafford, and the Earl's will. The Teaching of English. By W. S. Tomkinson. (Clarendon Press, 6s. Qd. net.) IN the Preface supplied to this book by Mr. Greening Lamborn there occurs a suggestive sentence : " What Greek literature did for a few in the past," he says, " English literature must do for the many in the future." There is no development of educational practice and theory which we welcome with so much hope with so deep a conviction of its being an advance in the -one right direction as the fresh insistence on the importance of Literature. It is a cause that -still needs stalwarts. On the one hand, in the domain of work, science confronts literature with formidable demands on the scholars' time, and with the claim that it gives him the main part of his equipment for life. On the other, in the domain of recreation the cinematograph and the over- illustrated magazine tend directly towards weakening th special tastes and faculties upon -which the enjoyment of literature depends. And literature not loved is not operative. Mr. Tomkinson's book displays most of the qualities to which we must look for eventual success. It has enthusiasm, ingenuity and insight as well as considerable discrimination and the confidence which actual experience alone supplies. It should inspire teachers : and also
 * guide them. One or two features we should

criticize. First, the whole plan seems to us calculated too exclusively for clever children, and also for teachers of unusual sympathy, for these alone will be able to modify these counsels so as to reach the dull scholar. Secondly, even for the clever we find some suggestions (such as those on p. 215 and, generally, much of the chapter on * Appreciation ') somewhat too diffi- cult ; and technique seems to us throughout slightly over-emphasized. In fact there is a tendency to treat the whole subject from a standpoint more suitable for students at a ^Training College than for the average school- . child. Prose construction and sequence of ideas though not absent hardly receive their due, and the excessive attention to isolated words and minor ornament sometimes betrays the writer into triviality. We are given some good pages on verse- writing as an exercise for children : but perhaps the best part of the book is that devoted to oral expression, and different speech exercises. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic' Henry VIII. Vol. I., Pts. 1, 2, 3. Catalogued by J. S. Brewer. Second Edition, Revised and greatly enlarged by R. H. Brodie. (H.M. Stationery Office.) THE re -issue of this great collection of documents calls for the attention and the gratitude of students of the sixteenth century. The volume before us begins with the will of Henry VII. and carries us to the end of 1514 when, in pursuance of the policy initiated by Wolsey, the war with France had been followed by a French alliance, and by the marriage of the King's sister to Louis XII. of France. The importance of these documents for the history both of international and domestic politics, need not be laboured : their interest as a record of personalities and manners, and as the depository of curious inci- dents, is inexhaustible. Moreover, with the sixteenth century we have the Records at their best from the student's point of view, in the sense that they are sufficiently abundant to enable one clearly to follow the development of causes and enterprises, and the sequence of events, and as yet are not so complicated and unwieldy as to force one upon narrow specializa- tion. Mr. Brodie furnishes a Preface devoted partly to explaining the improvements made in this second edition, partly to a sketch of the career of Wolsey, whom he relegates to his legendary origin of a butcher's son. The evidence seems to make this probable, there being no reason why a man of this trade should not be fairly well-to-do. Mr. Brewer's original preface is re-printed in Part 3. It remains a very sound and useful piece of work. A discussion of this collection is hardly possible nor is it needed. We have but to con- gratulate anew all who are concerned in the important national work of making the Records public. 10 EDITORIAL communications should be addressed to " The Editor of ' Notes and Queries ' "Adver- tisements and Business Letters to "The Pub- lishers" at the Office, Printing House Square, London, E.C.4. ; corrected proofs to the Athenaeum Press, 11 and 13 Bream's Buildings, E.C.4. ALL communications intended for insertion in our columns should bear the 'name and address o* the sender not necessarily for publication, but as a guarantee of good faith. WHEN sending a letter to be forwarded to another contributor correspondents are requested to put in the top left-hand corner of the envelope the number of the page of * N. & Q.' to which the letter refers.